Point Reyes Light - October 18, 2001
EAC studies appeal of writers’ retreat
By Daniel Freed
Members of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin on Wednesday said they probably will appeal the county planning commissioners’ decision on Monday to legalize Mesa Refuge writers retreat.
At issue are three writers’ sheds built without permits, as well as multi-lodger use of a single-family residence.
Landowner Peter Barnes, who made his money creating credit card and long-distance phone companies, and his wife Leyna Bernstein bought the residence in 1997 and provided San Francisco’s Tides Foundation with money to build the retreat.
The sheds, whose wiring also lacks permits, were built on a bluff below 11 Los Reyes Drive in Point Reyes Station. The site overlooks a marsh that is scheduled to become part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Although the Tides Foundation owns the retreat, the Oakland-based Common Counsel Foundation actually runs it and decides who gets to write there.
"We think that the bluff deserves protection under the Point Reyes Village Plan and under the county’s zoning code," said EAC executive director Catherine Caufield on Wednesday.
Noting that writers who have worked at the retreat were brought in to endorse it, Caufield commented, "The county’s planning commissioners were swayed by emotional arguments of people who mostly don’t live in West Marin."
After a lengthy hearing, the planning commissioners told Barnes to remove only one of three sheds despite a recommendation from the Planning Division staff that all three should be removed or relocated away from the marsh.
The staff recommendation was based on the fact that one shed is inside a stream conservation area and that all three are within a bluff-protection zone delineated in the Point Reyes Community Plan.
How much ado?
Commissioner Ross Herbertson called the late-night decision a "definite judgment call." Barnes called it "much ado about very little."
But many residents of Point Reyes Station disagreed with Barnes. Pat Healy, owner of the Station House Cafe and a neighbor of Mesa Refuge said, "This is much ado about something that is very important."
The three rough-hewn sheds are supposed to be used only as daytime workspaces by writers at the retreat. At night the writers sleep in a residence at 11 Los Reyes Drive, next door to Barnes’ house at 9 Los Reyes Drive.
Barnes three years ago compared the lodgers’ dwelling as comparable to a bed-and-breakfast inn, but when the planning staff noted B&B regulations require the owner to live on the property, he merely sought a permit granting the house "institutional" use.
Offer to restore habitat
At Monday’s hearing, Barnes asked that all three sheds be allowed to stay on the bluff in return for his paying for habitat restoration. The request prompted nearly two-and-a-half hours of testimony from 30 supporters and opponents of the retreat.
"If we as a community lose the spirit of Mesa Refuge and the spirit Mesa Refuge offers to the writers of our inspiration," said Point Reyes Station resident John Francis, "we will all lose."
Many environmental writers who had spent time at the site spoke about the tremendous artistic benefit of the retreat’s three primitive sheds located along the secluded bluff overlooking Tomales Bay.
"I think these sheds are really transformative. They’ve been a tremendous boost to me," said current Mesa Refuge resident Eugene Coyle. Like Coyle many past visitors thanked Barnes and credited the location for inspiration in finishing works about environmental crises and the beauty of nature.
Coastal environmentalists
However, local environmentalists – who expressed respect for Mesa Refuge and the work it inspired– asked that commissioners view the situation objectively and consider the negative impact of the sheds instead of the benefits to those working in them.
"I know it’s a place of inspiration," said Dogtown resident Cela O’Connor on Monday night. "All of West Marin is. Go sit under a redwood!"
Los Reyes Drive is a cul de sac, and its neighborhood association previously endorsed the retreat.
During the hearing, Christine Gimler of the planning staff gave commissioners a report form her division, which recommended that not only all three sheds be moved off the bluff but also that non-native vegetation be replaced, and that drainage be improved.
Stream Conservation Area
One of the shed sites, said Gimler in the staff report, "is located approximately 75 feet from the east bank of Tomasini Creek; therefore the entire structure is located within the 100-foot Stream Conservation Area."
Location of a structure within a Stream Conservation Area is a violation of the Countywide Code Stream-Conservation Policy and requires the structure’s removal, she explained.
But whether or not the shed is located 75 feet from a creek subject to protection under the code was a point of contention. Barnes argued that the waterway is not actually a creek but a "stagnant, polluted, manmade water channel."
Therefore, he argued, none of the sheds should be removed. The waterway is, in fact, manmade, having been constructed in the 1950s to reroute water around the diked pasture of the adjacent Giacomini Ranch.
But commissioners agreed that it is a waterway and that the shed located within 100 feet of it would have to be moved. The other two artist sheds are located more than 100 feet from the stream and are not affected by any Stream Conservation Area, they decided.
Riparian vegetation
Yet some argued that these two sheds are in fact part of a conservation area – based not upon proximity to the stream but upon their proximity to streamside vegetation. Willows that occur on the bluff, said critics such as Caufield of the EAC, are a part of the stream ecosystem.
Similar statements were made by wildlife biologist and EAC president Jules Evens of Point Reyes Station, by Phyllis Faber, author of two books about California plants, and by Todd Keeler-Wolf, a vegetation ecologist for the California Department of Fish and Game.
Ironically, Evens was on Common Counsel’s 15-member advisory board when it took over operation of Mesa Refuge.
In contrast to Evens, biologist James Martin claimed the willows exist independent of the stream and are not riparian vegetation.
Commissioners on Monday accepted Martin’s argument.
Community Plan shelved
Gimler’s staff report also noted that the March 2001 Point Reyes Station Community Plan "requires that the structures be resited off the bluff outside of the recommended 100-foot-wide buffer zone" in order to prevent bluff erosion, maintain ecological integrity, and maintain a visual separation of the marshland from the Mesa above.
Commission President Hank Barner, however, said the Community Plan does not apply to the sheds because the plan was "not in effect when [Barnes’] application was made."
He added that the decision to disregard the Community Plan when considering Mesa Refuge would not be precedent-setting and that it was just a case of fairness and timing.